The invention generally relates to voltage regulators and in particular to multi-phase pulse width modulated (PWM) direct-current (DC) to DC voltage regulators.
Most electronic circuits, from simple transistors and op-amp circuits up to elaborate digital and microprocessor systems, require one or more sources of stable DC voltage. DC-to-DC converters are well-known in the art. Such circuitry or devices are typically employed to convert from one DC voltage signal level to another DC voltage signal level. This may be useful in a variety of environments.
Today""s sophisticated processing units (PUs) have made the job of the power supply designer more difficult. These PUs continue to demand every higher currents and lower voltages. One problem is providing a desired, highly regulated, voltage which may vary in a range, such as, for example, from 0.96 volts to 1.04 volts, and that may depend, at least in part, on clock speed. Another challenge is to provide this voltage at relatively high currents that may vary from several hundred milliamps, up to, for example, 120 amps, and back again, in a clock cycle, for example. Furthermore, yet a third challenge is to provide a scalable design that meets these higher current requirements by using multiple instances of a common building block connected together in parallel. Therefore, a need exists for a DC-to-DC regulator circuit that is at least closer to accomplishing these objectives, or at least one of them, than state-of-the-art circuitry.